Data networks, such as wireless communication networks, have to trade off between services customized for a single terminal and services provided to a large number of terminals. For example, the distribution of non real time (NRT) content to a large number of resource limited portable devices (subscribers) is a complicated problem. Therefore, it is very important for network administrators, content retailers, and service providers to have a way to distribute NRT content and/or other network services in a fast and efficient manner and in such a way as to increase bandwidth utilization and terminal power efficiency.
In current content delivery/distribution systems, foreground and background services are packed into a transmission frame and delivered to devices on a network. For example, a communication network may utilize Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to broadcast real time services from a network server to one or more mobile devices. For example, the foreground services comprise real time streaming video and/or audio that generally needs to be processed when received. The background services comprise non real-time advertisements, presentations, files or other data.
It has become increasingly important in current wireless distribution systems to be able to provide conditional access (CA) to content. Conditional access means that one or more network entities (such as third party content vendors) are able to control user access to selected content to prevent unauthorized use. For example, conventional systems currently operate to provide conditional access to real time content, such as news, weather, sports, etc. However, conditional access systems to control access to NRT content are not available.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a system that operates to provide conditional access to NRT content over a distribution network.